


The Price of Stardust

by DiazTuna



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A non-soultmate soultmate au, Emma is Gugu Mbatha Raw in this, F/F, Longing, Some angst, Sort of like a more fantasy version of Gattaca, Yearning, mostly it's trashing capitalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27145996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiazTuna/pseuds/DiazTuna
Summary: Sometimes. Emma thinks she can feel it. The stardust moving inside her. The one no one paid for. The kind that comes attached to the soul of every newborn. Feels like loose change in her pocket. Like the thick cotton of her socks. But it’s not something people like her can do. It could never be more than wishful thinking. Yearning for what she can’t have. It must be part of it. To have enough of the stars lodged somewhere between her ribs and her heart to wish. Want for nothing in particular. For everything. If she understood it more, with better words. Maybe, maybe. She could put it all away and never think about it again.Or a Non-Soulmate Soulmate AU where souls are made of stardust and Emma starts feeling the burn of the stars when she is left in charge of the phone one night.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 24
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrincessBread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBread/gifts).



_I thought of writing to you because you remind me of myself. You thought you understood your soul, and you thought you knew how you needed to live your life. I thought you were wrong then, but I didn’t have the right answer myself._

_Liu, Ken. The Paper Menagerie . Head of Zeus. Kindle Edition._


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes. Emma thinks she can feel it. The stardust moving inside her. The one no one paid for. The kind that comes attached to the soul of every newborn. Feels like loose change in her pocket. Like the thick cotton of her socks. But it’s not something people like her can do. It could never be more than wishful thinking. Yearning for what she can’t have. It must be part of it. To have enough of the stars lodged somewhere between her ribs and her heart to wish. Want for nothing in particular. For everything. If she understood it more, with better words. Maybe, maybe. She could put it all away and never think about it again. 

The first explanation had come when Emma had been six and her shirt had been two sizes too big. Mrs. Brun, with her mousey hair and mousey glasses, had barely looked at the class. Before any of them were born there had been a discovery. The thing that made every human up, the very essence of them, was nothing more than dust from the stars. From explosions and big, big bursts of energy. Big, big bursts of energy that the smartest people on the planet managed to recreate again and again. 

In that classroom she imagined the stars to look silver and violet. Shining white and bright. There had been people, who had gone up. Caught them in glass bottles and sold their magic. To anyone who could pay the price. To those who wanted more and more of the stars attached to their children’s souls. Better health, better luck. Success. Happiness. Emma had sat at her desk and kicked the air. She had been on foster mom and foster dad number seven. Had her milk watered down and boxed mashed potatoes for dinner. She’d known then. No one had paid for her soul. 

Tonight she is reminded of that with the quiet hum of the old heating system. Emma sucks in a breath and types in the numbers into the screen. Hundreds of them. Belonging to different people, names. Grams of stardust. To feed into an algorithm, to create perfect matches over a whole range of categories. Housing, schools. Food. Air quality. Lead in the water. All reduced to periods and commas. It’s numbing and thankless. Soul crushing. It’s what they call jobs like it. People like her are destined to fill them. Life knows better than to expect more from them. The numbers and particles don’t lie. 

“Em, can you watch the phone?” Ruby asks, as she leans against her work station.

“Uh, you know me and the phone don’t mix.” She scratches the back of her neck. “It’s too…”

There is a script all agents are supposed to follow. Emma knows that she’ll trip on the sugar in the words. Hang up too early. She isn’t right for that type of work. Not like Ruby is. 

“Oh, come on. It’ll be gone ten minutes.” She holds up her vapor smoker. “I’d smoke it in here but you know how Jeanine feels about it. And there’s almost no chance of getting a caller, it’s five to eleven. Please? Please?” 

Emma looks at Ruby and knows that someone must have at least paid for an extra gram or two for her. Smiles come easily to her with wide green eyes like that.

“Ten minutes. No more.” 

“Thank you!” Ruby squeals and runs down the hall. 

“You’re addicted to that thing!” Emma yells after her but it’s no use.

The phone that threatens to ring at any second is now her responsibility. With its flashing lights and all the extension numbers that come with it. Emma adds a few decimals to a cell and hopes no life is greatly altered by it. In these three. Four. Six. Eight minutes when the phone is silent. 

It’s at the ninth minute when it rings. It cannot go past that first beat. The rules are painted in red on the wall facing them at all times. Agents are forbidden to keep customers waiting. 

“Ah fuck.” Emma grunts, rushing to pick up the receiver. “Little Dipper, Big Dipper, how can I help you tonight?” 

That sugar rolls around in her tongue making her grimace. Ruby’s script is on the desk, with all her notes written in blue.  _ Don’t forget your name! Company motto!!!! _ That is one mistake she can already add to her count.

“Hello,” A rich voice says, a woman who only borders on polite. “Could I be patched to head engineer in charge?”

_ DO NOT BOTHER CARLA. NO!! _ Underlined and circled at least five times. Emma bites the inside of her cheek and tries to find the right thing to say. 

“Could you give me a run down of your case?” She taps a finger on the desk. “It would make things…”

“I asked for the head engineer for a reason.” It’s curt and uninterested. “It isn’t something I can discuss with an  _ agent _ .” 

_ ASK FOR THEIR NAME. USE IT IF THEY ARE BEING DIFFICULT!! _

“Ma’am, I can assure it’s better to just tell me. I can handle it.” Emma closes her eyes. Counts to three. There is a simmer in her chest, sparked by this voice. Who seemingly thinks so little of her. 

“I sincerely doubt that.” The woman replies, a little too close to a laugh. “Agents are not learned in this--” 

“Try me.” The simmer grows and grows.. Maybe Emma pictures the stardust floating in it. Up and up. To her throat. To her mouth. 

A rustle comes through the line. Almost like the woman has twirled the cord in her finger at the other end. Switched the receiver from her shoulder. Silence beyond it. 

“Look, OK.” Emma says after a beat. Because this call is being recorded and will be reviewed at the end of the month. Under Ruby’s name. “I could…”

“I’m a Class A citizen,” She tells her, a simple statement of fact. “I submitted a request three months ago. And so far, I have yet to receive word for a match. Tell me, Miss…”

“Swan.” If she were a Class A citizen too she could see it, she thinks. The stardust around her name. 

“Tell me, Miss Swan. Do you have an explanation for that?” 

Emma glances back at her workstation. At the periods and commas. Numbers that determine grams and particles. None are ever denied to people like the caller. So high up on the columns. Matched to the finest items. 

“I didn’t think so. Now patch me--”

“You must have requested an item from the very bottom,” The words feel bright as they leave her. “The algorithm marked it as a mistake.” 

“I did  _ not _ make a mistake.” The irritation rings through her.

Until something vibrates in her throat. So new it burns. Burns what little stardust she owns. 

“I never said you did.”

“You implied it. It amounts to the same thing.” 

“I didn’t and it does not.” It’s her turn to be a little too close to a laugh. Maybe burning does that to her. “I only said that the algorithm read it as--”

“Does it amuse you?” The question is sharp and not meant to be answered. “What half-baked formula is your company applying to people’s lives?! The sheer incompetence of allowing a request to be lost to--” 

“Hey, lady I didn’t come up with the system.” Emma stands taller, feeling a twitch on her lips. “Maybe take it out on those mages your parents paid to make you a Class A.”

“ _ Emma. _ ” Ruby snaps her fingers in front of her face. “What are you doing?!” 

The caller mutters out a name or three as the phone gets snatched away from her. Emma bites at her lips, clears her throat. Feeling still that bright burn. Vibrating. Ruby turns the vapor smoker in her hand, her eyes are silver with her fix of it. The silver that glows as she waits for an explanation.

“I told you.” Emma exhales. Almost like she feels she has lost something. “Me and the phone don’t mix.”

She shakes her head in disapproval and puts the receiver up to her ear. 

“Hello, ma’am. This is Ruby speaking, I apologize.” Her middle finger is lifted pointedly at Emma as she settles back at her work station. “Yes, I agree. It was unprofessional…” 

Emma can’t explain it. How whatever grams and particles of stardust find a smile within her. One no one paid for.

It has her checking her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Feeling for an ache in her cheeks. Pinpoint what might be different about that call. But it’s her same face looking at her. Brown eyes without a particular glea to them. Curls held back into a bun. Same brown skin that could benefit from a day shift. 

Still. Maybe those particles burn bright. 

* * *

Someone else would have tried to understand it. Gone to a mage and explained that burn. The one had grown dimmer and dimmer as the days went by. But any diagrams drawn out for her, any star chart folded into her pocket could never be enough. Emma doesn’t want the logic of it dissected and robbed of its magic. She wants it back. Hours at the office tick by so slowly and the inside of her grows cold and still with them. Emma joins Ruby at the terrace, swallows the vapor. Vanilla flavored silver. Never as good as the stars, like they advertised. But enough to make her laugh and make her lightheaded for a few minutes. 

The numbers don’t change day by day. Emma still adds decimals to each cell. Knows those periods and commas will turn into something real. She thinks about the caller. What she could have possibly wanted that was out of her reach. Nothing in her job description needs her to care. Wonder at any of the choices she is helping get made. But Emma finds herself scrolling down those columns. Inspecting the categories that could never be matched to those Class A people. Housing, food. Lead in the water. Pollutants in the air. Unless she wanted a property by an unswimmable, unlivable creek Emma is stumped. 

“Hey, did Jeanine give you trouble about the caller the other night?” She asks Ruby pulling from the vapor smoker. 

“What caller?” 

“You know, the one I took.” Emma shouldn’t be asking. It’s against those red rules painted on their walls. “The--”

“The Class A asshole?” Her grin shines out here, reflecting the moon. “No. Like Jeanine has the patience to actually sit through my recordings.” 

“Oh. Good.” She rubs her hands together and tries not to think about the cold. “What did she want anyway? Besides being patched straight to Carla.” 

“Beats me.” Ruby shrugs and exhales. “Said something about us running a scam and profiting off government subsidies. Eventually I think she mentioned processing a new request.” 

“Did she?”

“I wouldn’t stress about it too much. Those people find either a senior agent or an engineer and never bother with us again.” 

Emma says nothing and gladly takes the last pull Ruby offers her. It clouds her mind. Just enough to trick her into believing she has forgotten about it. Enough that she can sit in front of her screen and keep punching those numbers again. Get that cup of coffee to keep her awake and numb. 

“Em,.” The tap on her shoulder reminds Emma that she is here. Still here. “Someone’s on the phone for you.” 

“Who?” Emma blinks away the last bits of silver in her. 

“A Regina Mills.” Ruby tells her, pointing to the phone with her thumb. “She asked for you by name.” 

It’s a side effect of the vanilla silver. To feel outside her body. Not register the linoleum floor under the sole of her shoes. Or the plastic that encases every wire that makes up the phone. 

“Hello?” The vibration is outside her. 

“Is this Miss Swan?” The voice. With a name now. Regina Mills.

Immediately a flame flickers awake. Burns through the fumes of silver left in her lungs. 

“Yeah. That’s me.” Emma slowly slides back into her body. And her lips itch to smile. 

“That other agent has no idea what she is talking about.” Regina Mills tells her. “She balked when I asked about your faulty algorithm. But you’re not an agent, are you?”

“No.” She curls a finger around the cord and leans against Ruby’s desk. “Just a lowly number cruncher.” 

Regina Mills breathes out in what Emma imagines is displeasure. 

“And to think you’re my best option.” 

It shouldn’t sting. It’s only the order of things but a part of Emma hoped. Wanted this woman to have felt the burn too. She presses her nails against her palms to remind herself of it. People like Regina Mills have nothing new, no burns left to discover. 

“Yeah, well. Tough luck,” Emma hadn’t meant to breathe out like that. “Couldn’t find an engineer to fix your problem?” 

It sounds like an accusation and it comes out so hot out of her tongue. For a moment only silence. 

“Tell me about the algorithm,” Regina Mills demands in a clipped tone. Ignoring whatever Emma had asked of her. “How it makes the decisions it does.” 

“Huh, lady you’re just looking to cost me my job.” She stifles a laugh. “That information is above my paygrade, anyway.” 

“Oh, please. All that number crunching must have told you something.” 

The thing is. Emma has accidentally figured it out. About the exact grams of stardust that separate an A from a B. The city lines between neighborhoods. Highrises and project towers. Every variation turned into a new inequality. 

“Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. I still can’t tell you.” 

“Did I overestimate you, Miss Swan?” Her voice is deep and threatens to drag Emma to its depths. “You seemed so keen to have your skills tested before.” 

“Ha, last time you didn’t like what I had to say.” Emma feels heat pinching its way up to her cheeks. “What makes you think it’ll be any different now?” 

“It sounds to me like you’re afraid.” Regina Mills sounds like she could be smirking. Her lips flexed to a taunt. “Or perhaps you were just making it all up.”

The vibrations of her words burn down to her toes. Emma closes her eyes and tries to settle those vibrations into an image. Of Regina Mills. If she could see it, the stardust, she could see her too. All her mind does is think of small particles. Gold and crimson adding up to a woman who is only a stranger. 

“You’re not gonna goad me into telling you.” Her own voice shudders. 

“No?” There is a dangerous shift to her voice. “Then patch me through to someone who will.” 

A challenge and for whatever reason, that heat melts her skin. Her bones. Makes her heart race. So willing to take her up on it. 

“I don’t think I will.” 

“You don’t want to antagonize me, Miss Swan.” 

This time Emma really does laugh and hangs up. Feeling too pleased with herself, her lips burning with the words. Ears ringing from Regina Mills’s voice. 

It becomes a habit. Part of a routine. Ten to eleven Ruby rolls her eyes as she hands the phone over to Emma. Makes a passing remark on this fixation they seem to have for each other. Emma doesn’t deny it. That she will do anything to keep herself warm. That the hours click by as she counts them. Until it’s time for that call that only lasts a few minutes and leaves more questions than answers. 

“Hypothetically speaking,” Regina Mills begins, one night where Ruby is throwing paper planes at her. “If someone’s grams were to be reevaluated--”

“See, now that just wouldn’t happen.” 

“Hence the word  _ hypothetically.”  _ There is a subtle drop in her voice “If someone’s soul was weighed and found wanting, could they be matched to a lower estimated item?” 

“Wanting?” Emma lets the question kindle her curiosity. She has been trying to decipher the puzzle behind Regina Mills’s request. It’s all out of her hands, locked behind passcodes and spells. Not that she would betray whatever these calls are by looking. 

“As if it had decreased in value or not been as heavy as expected.” That drop goes lower. Verging on a whisper. 

“Maybe.” She tells her. “There is no way of measuring that, though. Once the soul’s been paid for and attached--”

“I know that. I’m not an _ idiot. _ ” It’s so pointed in her outrage. 

Emma sighs as she hears the phone disconnect.

It does not get easier. Every day waiting for that call and failing to answer Regina Mills’s questions. Emma spends her breaks in incognito mode and scribbling down whatever she finds. Theories and all the properties of synthetic stardust. Ways to trick scales. Fake credentials and spells. 

“Don’t you think I’ve looked into this?” The phone hits static when she snaps. “What, you thought I put myself through this ordeal because I have a choice?” 

“No. I thought you did it just for kicks.” Emma replies, just barely toying with the bait. 

“Please.” Regina Mills scoffs and her chest fills another one of those feelings. Unfamiliar and warm. “Because my idea of fun is dealing with the paid inefficiency of privatized bureaucracy?”

“I don’t know what type of weird crap you Class As are into.” She bites the excess skin off her lips and wraps the cord around her forearm. “Maybe torturing number crunchers--”

“Torturing?” Her laugh is so smooth. Closing her eyes, Emma could trick herself into seeing stardust again. Feeling it move. “Miss Swan, you can’t--”

The line goes dead. Followed by a new dial tone. Emma furrows her brow and wonders if she accidentally sat on a button. But she finds Jeanine standing behind her. Gritting her teeth and pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“My office. Now.” Jeanine tells her before heading off to that space between the bathroom and the broom closet. 

The phone rings again as soon as Emma puts it down. She swallows and braces herself for whatever talking-to is waiting for her. 

“Big Dipper, Little Dipper, this is Ruby speaking. How can I help you tonight?” Ruby’s eyes are apologetic as she settles back at her desk.. Shine with that empathy her extra grams got her.  _ I’m sorry,  _ she mouths. “I’m afraid she can’t take your call at the moment. No, I don’t know when she’ll be available again…”

It’s only a few steps to Jeanine’s office. Who doesn’t even bother to tell her to shut the door. 

“Just what the hell have you been doing these past weeks?”

“I, uh..”  _ Shit. _ “What do you mean?” 

“Don’t play dumb with me, Emma.” Jeanine sighs, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I know Ruby thinks I don’t listen to her recordings. So you thought it was probably safe to do...whatever you’ve been doing with that caller.” 

She could try and spin it. Argue that Regina Mills is an unhappy customer. That she was going the extra mile. But really Emma has no justification. No explanation for it. Other than the burn, the one she feeds every night. 

“I’m sorry. I thought I could help--” 

“Sorry you got caught.” Her boss blows air through her mouth. “At least you never divulged anything confidential. Not that you’d know it. Saves us the lawsuit.” 

“Lawsuit?” Emma blinks, trying to keep that shiver at bay. The one that is quickly overtaking the warmth she’d felt only moments ago. “What do you mean by lawsuit?” 

“Christ. Your contract.” Jeanine rubs at her temples. “Sharing confidential information is not only grounds for dismissal but opens you up to a lawsuit. But lucky for you, that’s not the case.”

“Yeah. Lucky me.” She balls her hands into fists. Already doing the math. Wondering what jobs are out there for her. With the weight of a newborn’s stardust in her. “So what now?”

“You’re an hourly worker. Any compensation you might have been entitled to was already included in your wages. This is your last shift.” 

“Great. That’s fucking great, Jeanine.” Emma unclips the plastic card that held her company ID. “Hope you get that salary bump for a job well done.” 

At least she gets to watch the woman’s jaw drop. A joke. No one in Big Dipper, Little Dipper gets salary bumps or bonuses. Not unless they sit at that big desk on the top floor. As it stands, they are in the basement with all the pipes and leaks. 

“I need you out. By the end of the night.” 

Emma takes one deep breath before turning on her heel. The end of the night is only twenty minutes away. There is nothing at her work station that needs packing, besides a bottle of aspirin. Ruby calls Jeanine a rancid bitch, because she knows she uses the company phone all the time. She says it isn’t fair. Offers the last load of her vapor smoker to Emma. Vanilla Silver to make tonight less shitty. Make tomorrow easier. Emma doesn’t have it in it to reject her. Because her pockets will start burning holes soon enough. 

Tonight she can still afford to swing by a self-checkout counter for a burger and fries and take the metro all the way to her place. She rubs her eyes on the way out of the elevator and into the lobby. Deserted except for a woman sitting at that uncomfortable couch by the revolving door. Hands folded over her lap. Dark hair that is cut just below her chin. Pressed clothes under a black coat as if it were noon and not midnight. A red silk scarf around her neck. Skin that sees the Sun every day. Emma tries to not let her eyes linger on her. To get caught staring. 

She stuffs her hands in her jacket in an effort to distract herself. Warms them in the cotton inside the leather. Emma could step past her and face the wind out on the sidewalk soon. But the woman’s hands fall from her lap as Emma gets closer, her shoulders align themselves straighter. 

“Miss Swan.” 

It’s her. Regina Mills. Just like that, the new of the familiarity of the burn returns. 

“What are you doing here?” It comes a little angrier than she means. But it’s midnight and Emma just got taken out like trash. 

Brown eyes. Regina Mills has brown eyes that narrow as she considers the question. And does not seem at all surprised Emma recognized her by voice alone. 

“I called back after you hung up on me.” She stands and it’s only now that Emma realizes she is also in heels. “I thought I’d give you a piece of my mind.” 

“Jesus. I didn’t  _ hang _ up on you. All those times before, sure but--” Emma’s neck grows hot and she thinks. That maybe her stardust feels like loose pieces of gold in her pocket. 

“Your agent co-worker told me as much,” A hand smooths her hair. “Or rather, told me that you were being fired.” 

“Uh, I kinda broke some rules. Ruby should have told you that too.” Emma can’t not look at her. The crimson on her lips. “It’s just company policy.” 

“It’s ridiculous it’s what it is. You were taking a customer’s call, a Class A’s case.” There is something behind her eyes. A spark Emma wants to trick herself into recognizing. “They cannot simply dismiss you.”

“Actually, they can. It’s in my contract. Apparently.” Defeat should be less obvious on her but it must be clear.. Clear by the way Regina Mills clicks her tongue and shakes her head. 

“Apparently? You mean you didn’t read it? Just accepted it at face value? How could you do that? Don’t you--”

“Look, there is really nothing I can do about it. I’m not going to change anyone’s mind by marching in there--”

“You should! Go back and demand a review of the decision, as is your  _ right _ …”

Emma snorts and throws her head back with laughter. The world really is different for Class As. They are so unafraid, so used to being treated as someone of significance. 

“This is no laughing matter.” Regina Mills knits her brow together. Like Emma imagines she did every time they spoke over the phone. “This is--”

“Serious, I know.” She tells her, clearing her throat. “I think I may have a better handle on unemployment than you do. No offense.” 

Understanding settles in her gaze, Emma can see herself reflected there. It spreads with something that might be embarrassment across her expression.

“Be that as it may. I still think it’s a mistake to walk away without a fight.” By the way she tilts her chin as she speaks, Regina Mills is someone who is accustomed to her disapproving looks being taken as orders.

These details of hers click in place for Emma then. Expensive details that must have been wished for and bottled. A heavy, heavy soul. Out of place tonight. All corner pieces of Regina Mills. 

“You didn’t get me fired,” Emma says with a shrug, to rein in the heat on her cheeks. “And there is nothing  _ you _ can do to fix it.”

Her jaw tightens as she takes a deep breath. Emma thinks this could be something she does often. Like an exercise she’d been taught. 

“Fine.” It carries the same finality as that last word they share before clicking off. It would have left her burning for a day. Shaking the smiles off her lips. Waiting. Thinking she could feel those grams of the stars going in and out of her lungs. 

But here. In a deserted lobby, with the streetlights shining blue there is no waiting involved. No cords or lines. Emma could dare. 

“Did you come all the way down here because of me?” 

“No. I had a meeting up on the sixty-sixth floor at eleven. It went splendid. Half the room was struggling to stay awake.” Regina Mills rolls her eyes and licks her lips. “I obviously dragged myself down here to try and salvage your situation.” 

Emma blinks and confuses the dust on the street for something more. Because her lips are fighting the curl of a smile. 

“Buy me a drink.” 

“What?” A gleam in her eye. It shines, just for a moment. 

“I can’t think of a better way to salvage tonight,” The heat simmering under her bones makes Emma brave. “Can you?” 

“No. I can’t.” She concedes, finally allowing her lips to part. “Lead the way, Miss Swan.” 

“Emma.” Not for the first time, she wishes she could see the stars in her name. “My name’s Emma.” 

* * *

It’s a smoky, rundown bar. It smells of the vanillas and every other vapor flavors. Sweet. Too sweet. They’re sitting close at the bar. Enough for an accidental brush of their fingers. To get their warm ciders confused. Regina, because she became only Regina outside Big Dipper, Little Dipper, uses her voice to convince the bartender. The cook into a late dinner. For her friend here, who just lost her job. How much is a voice like hers worth? How many grams for the charm and the easy way the words roll out. 

“Tell me, how does one even land a job as a number cruncher?” Regina asks, eyes darkening in delight as she sips her drink. 

“Seriously?” Emma shakes her head. “Don’t they teach at the fancy academies and colleges?”

“You’d be surprised..” 

“That’s funny.” She drinks from her cider. Finds herself dumbfounded for a moment. By the taste of apple and spice. Rushing all over her. Nothing has ever tasted like that before. For a moment Emma thinks it must be the price. But it’s a smoky, rundown bar. Nothing could carry a Class A price here. 

Regina’s eyes shine as if to ask  _ you too? _ Emma shudders out a breath and looks away. 

“I..uh, I guess. You become a number cruncher same way you become everything else.” 

“By the reading you got at birth? I was hoping for something a little more enlightening.” 

“Sorry. There’s nothing complicated to it.” Emma takes another sip. Feels the same apple and spice rush faster with Regina’s eyes on her. “You’re born and measured and that’s pretty much it.” 

“What a stupid basis for a system.” She laughs as if something had just been confirmed for her. “God, what a fucking stupid system. Wouldn’t you say?” 

“Class As say everyone gets what they pay for.”  _ What they deserve. _ Emma looks at the steam coming from the kitchen. Where the cook is busy making an exception for them. For Regina. 

“A convenient lie.” Regina’s voice dips into something like bitterness. Something that should have been blotted out of her soul when they paid for it. 

“Oh?”

“Trick people into believing that the world is blind. That the things that make you up don’t matter so long as your soul is heavy enough.” 

The glowing undertones to her skin and the hardness around her ts and rs tells Emma that she sees it. The way the world is ordered, where the paleness of someone’s skin is associated with a soul heavy with the stars. Regina was looking for something she already knew to be confirmed. Those late night calls had been the same. 

“It’s a shitty fucking system.” Emma half laughs in relief. “And you fall into number crunching mostly by accident. If you’re lucky, it won’t numb you to death.” 

“And were you lucky?” The bitterness is forgotten and turned into a playfulness. 

“I’d say so, yeah.” Every particle of hers. Whatever Emma had been born with, is on fire with the look Regina gives her. “And what about you?”

“What about me, dear?”

“What’s a woman like you doing in a place like this?” She taps her fingers on the dark wood of the bar. Emma wonders if this is when what little pieces of the puzzle she has collected will be scattered away. 

“I’m not that interesting.” Regina smiles against her glass. The touch of her fingers on Emma’s knuckles can only be intentional.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Emma tells her, her fingertips reaching for Regina’s. “And you know that.” 

It’s like holding onto a match as the orange travels down. Down. Consuming, threatening to burn if it isn’t dropped. Emma holds onto it. To that fire that never recedes into a numbness that would slowly creep back in. It only grows brighter with the plate they share. Inexpensive but bursting in her mouth. Every molecule of it. None pieces fit together and the puzzle of Regina only becomes more undecipherable. With every touch. Every word. They drink until their breath is warm and the air smells of cinnamon. And their hands don’t know what to do with each other and the barkeep is pointing towards the clock behind them. 

Regina’s heel bends when it gets caught in the roughness of the pavement outside. If the Sun were up, if the streets were lined with people, she wouldn’t stumble. Lean against Emma’s arm. On instinct and feeling so heavy Emma steadies her by the small of her back. 

“I’m sorry.” Regina says in a hushed voice. “About your job too. I’m sorry about that.” 

“It’s OK.” Emma finds the ends of Regina’s hair. Curls two fingers around them. “There was this Class A caller. She was driving me nuts with all these complicated questions.” 

“She sounds like she was being thorough.” She keeps her voice low. 

“A thorough pain in the ass.” 

Regina trembles under the touch of Emma’s knuckles on her jaw. 

“ _ You _ are an ass.” 

There is a flare in her eyes when Regina pulls her closer. Kisses her. Out in the white and blue of the streets. And Emma is just a flame. The world a blur when Regina whispers against the shell of her ear.  _ Let’s go. Let’s go. Take me.  _ Ok. Ok Emma says before she takes her lips again. Grazes her teeth on them. Tastes the last of the spice and sweetness. On the metro’s hard plastic chairs and the flickering lights of the tunnels. Not caring where they are. About the time. Up the stairs to Emma’s apartment. 

Dark. Windows shaking from the passing trains. Regina’s skin is hard with the cold and Emma works to remedy it. With her hands, with her mouth. Kissing the glow on her skin darker. Taking her. On the covers she had washed this morning. Falling into a rhythm that goes and goes until curses in languages Emma does not speak spill out of Regina’s throat. Until Emma’s own name mingles in with them. She opens her eyes to look at Regina, with her swollen and parted lips. It’s there. Emma’s name crimson as it vibrates out of her. Thick, thick heavy stardust. Her breath catches as it wraps itself around Emma’s arms.

“Regina.” It’s golden out of her. The stardust falls so delicately on Regina’s eyelashes. It makes her whimper. Cry.

It is the most beautiful thing. Emma forgets every other word that isn’t Regina’s name. It paints the walls golden with its light. 

Later when they are out on the balcony where Emma’s clothes hang Regina looks at her like she might be seeing the crimson and gold for the first time too. She keeps her gaze steady on Emma and not on the sunrise. 

“Are you going to smoke that?” Regina points to the vapor smoker in her hand. 

Loaded with Vanilla Silver. Sex had always come with a pull or two from her partner’s smoker. Cherry Bronze. Strawberry Steel. Whatever they hadn’t satisfied, whatever Emma had still been missing the smoker could give her. For a few deceitful minutes.

“No. I’m not.” She answers, stashing it in an empty pot. Nothing could be missing out here, with the cold of the early morning. 

Regina shakes her head. Tugs at the sleeves of Emma’s oversized sweatshirt and finally. Finally smiles. Leans in to kiss the way down to her jaw. To that pulse point in her throat. Up to her lips again. 

“Good,” It’s a mumble that has them going back to bed. “Good.” 

The way Regina touches her. Like someone had given her a map of her body. To the sensitive valleys. To the scars on her knees. The tender skin of her inner thighs. Emma learns that stardust colors different in the sunlight. That its colors stick to the whitewash of the walls. She learns it with Regina’s mouth closing around her center and Emma is nothing but a raw, living pulse. 

“Can I ask you something?” Emma breathes in the honey scent of her hair. 

“Yes.” Regina exhales like she had been expecting the question all night. Her hand searches for Emma’s, to wrap around her middle. As if she were scared Emma would run out of the room the second she answers. 

“What...what was the request you put it in?” She says as softly as she can. “The one that kept being marked as a mistake.” 

There is silence for beat. When it’s just the sunlight bouncing off the stardust and the trains outside Emma’s window. 

“Regina...you don’t have to--”

“It was for an adoption,” She says, sounding so small. “There were several requests, actually. Unacknowledged every time. Your company was only one on a very long list.” 

Emma presses her body closer to hers. A kiss on the back of her neck. She had never felt someone else’s heartbreak so acute in her chest. Regina lets out a cry, one Emma suspects she hadn’t allowed herself to have. 

And like that all of these pieces of her fall together. Not yet making up an image. 


	3. Chapter 3

#DAA520. It’s the closest shade of gold to her own. To the stardust that floats in the air at night until it settles on Regina’s skin. Like freckles that catch the light. Emma flips through the color palettes at the depot in her few spare moments. Her thumb knows where to stop to find the code of Regina’s shade. #DC143C, exactly crimson. It knows its way down her arms and up her chest. Walking the aisles of carefully labelled artifacts all she does is think about it. Silently wonder if others can see the remnant of Regina on her neck too. If they can see it the way Emma can see theirs. 

On lunch breaks in the room at the back she takes small bites from her food. Carrots. Bread. The gravy Regina told to reheat for a minute and a half. The molecules always melt in her mouth and the gold vibrates out of her again. Emma searches for it because it should have a name. _Class C sees stardust. Class C tastes new flavors._ All the results every throw at her is an old movie and even older book of the same name. Useless. Nothing on stardust and sudden changes. No articles. No studies. Videos or records. Not even conspiracy theories.

It figures this would happen to Emma alone. 

Asking Regina is out of the question. Class As have looked at the world this way since they were born. And these changes mean _something_ about them. Emma isn’t sure what just yet. Not with the weight of failed adoption requests and questions of who and what they are together. Apart. That first morning under the covers Regina had told her about the job she had quit. Some law firm that Emma supposes rings a bell in other circles. She had told Emma about going for a run one day and seeing a mother. Her little boy smiling up at her and waving. Knowing right then she wanted a child. 

Emma couldn’t have imagined in group homes and social organizations that someone would want her. Badly enough to comb through every matching agency out there. To spend nights searching for answers. She’d thought of cogs in a machine. Ones that keep children like her moving from home to home. In cold classrooms and with holes in their socks. The gold had stuck to Regina’s lips as she spoke and Emma hadn’t asked anything else from her. About expensive procedures that could make her womb swell. Grams, grams of stardust that could gift her whatever child she wanted. Planned and perfect. Why, why. Why pick from a box of spares. Kids no one had wanted. 

It’s been three weeks since that morning. Not nearly enough time to think about a future. 

“Mind if I sit?” Jacinda, one of the cashiers Emma recognizes, asks. Her nose scrunched up in distaste. “Some jerk microwaved _fish_.” 

“Go ahead.” Emma says making room for her at the table. 

Her stardust is a deep blue that follows her hands. Grows brighter with the smile she gives Emma. Emerald sticks to her cheeks, to her eyelashes. Like crimson does to her. 

“Are you just as new as I am?”

“Uh, maybe.” Emma tries not to sound too distracted by her observations. “Did Stella hire you too?” 

“Part-time, yeah.” Jacinda tells her with a sigh that sounds far from tired. “Me and my wife are opening up a place. Need the cash, you know how it is.” 

_Wife._ The emerald wakes up at that, joins the deep blue in its dance. 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

“What about you?” She eyes Emma like she can see the two strains of stardust on her too. The obvious particles that mark her as Regina’s. 

“I, uh I’m not married.” Heat rushes up Emma’s neck when she realizes it’s not what she’d been asked. “I mean, part-time. I work part-time too.” 

Jacinda throws her head back and laughs. Those laughs that Emma thought must have cost so much stardust. She produces a paper bag, heavy with sugar. The smell of it alone sets off those explosions in Emma’s mouth. Golden brown pillows dusted with a fine powder. 

“Have one, before you drool all over.” Jacinda tells her, still so amused. 

“You better hide these or they won’t survive the break room,” She tells her, plucking one from the bag. Dyeing her fingertips white as she does. “Hard work going to waste.” 

“My wife makes them. I’m the one getting people through the door and updating the spreadsheets at closing.” 

_Wife. Wife._ Emma tastes the word when she bites into it. Blue and green molecules. _Made with love!_ It’s stamped on the paper bag and she does not doubt it’s true. Not when she can taste it. Understand the whole story. 

* * *

Duckfoot. It’s one of those places on Grimm street that Emma never really understood. Where food is served in reductions, syrups and other words she doesn’t care to learn. She had delivered produce to their backroom early in the week, blood oranges and lychees. The head chef had not looked at her when Emma placed the crates inside. His stardust had been faint and grey. Too weak for a Class A. She’d blamed the cold and the hour. Maybe her eyes had deceived her. 

Now she is sitting at one of their tables with the black turtle neck she kept in the back of her closet. The room might as well be covered in a thin grey fog. One that contradicts prices and every ad for a mage out there. Where only Regina’s crimson and her gold stand out. Hers is coming out in nervous sputters. Making her choke on the wine that disintegrates against her tongue. For a Class A price. 

“Is everything alright?” Regina asks after they’ve been served a foam of _duck_ in an egg. 

“Yeah, everything’s good.” Emma says using the smallest spoon on their table to prod the foam. “This looks great.” 

Regina watches her bring it up to her lips. Locks those dark eyes with hers. She can’t hide. The foam melts like everything else but all she can see is grey. Faint behind the oiliness of it. Emma is no closer to understanding this place. The people dining and talking in a way that would be worth only a few grams of stardust. 

“It’s delicious, isn’t it?” Regina quirks a brow and leans closer. 

“The best… duck foam I’ve ever had.” 

“You’re the worst liar I’ve met.” She smiles and it’s so bright. So deeply red. “And believe me, I would know.” 

“What are you talking about?” Emma sees her gold reaching for her crimson. “I’m a _great_ liar.”

“Oh? How does fennel pollen sound for our next course?”

She holds her gaze steady because Regina is not budging an inch. Her foot brushing up against her leg. Teasing Emma into giving up.

“Like I’m dying to try it.” Three seconds. It takes three seconds for her to snort in disbelief. “We’ll walk out of here hungry if we have pollen for dinner.” 

“Why did you say ‘OK’ when I chose this restaurant?” She shakes her head and picks some foam off the top of her egg. Presses her lips together to hold off her a grimace. 

“You had a reservation,” Emma whispers leaning against the table. “That’s sort of a big deal, right?” 

“I still wish you would have said something.” Her voice isn’t unkind, even as it dips lower.

In the dim yellow lighting and with the cloth napkin on her lap the differences between them are a little more apparent. Emma hadn’t thought of turning her down. Not even if that first check from the depot hasn’t cleared. Tell her that the busboys probably recognize her. She can’t bring herself to say it. 

“Sorry.” 

“Don’t be. It had rave reviews,” She clears her throat and tucks her hair behind her ear. “I thought...I don’t know what I thought. It sounded like an experience.”

Regina’s stardust is like a heartbeat. Pulsating crimson off her chest. Emma looks around, to check if anyone else can see it. If they are just as taken by her as she is. No one pays them any mind with the dull sounds of cutlery and glass surrounding them.

“Well. They aren’t wrong there.” Emma nods to the napkins that were somehow made edible two tables over. 

“Ridiculous gimmicks.” Regina rolls her eyes even when her skin tints darker. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Please. I’m starving.” 

With a flick of her wrist Regina asks for the check. Doesn’t think twice about setting her card on that silver tray. She does not even look at the total before signing it through. 

The wind is harsh on them and has them rushing through the sidewalks. Clutching each other’s hand like they might lose each other in the crowds. Emma spots a small restaurant with yellow and red letters. Just under the beams of a metro station. Unnoticed and promising steamed buns and large portions. Doing quick math and feeling the loose change in her pocket Emma steers Regina towards it. Past green lights and stardust that mingles with frozen breaths.

Warmth envelops them as soon as they walk through the door. The air is heavy with steam and fire. It feels like relief for Emma, one of those old sensations she hardly thought about. She makes a beeline for the counter and puts in an order. Two red bean buns while they wait. Regina eyes hers skeptically as they settle into a corner booth. As if she can’t decide what to make of it. 

“You said it’s sweet?” She pinches at the hot white skin of it.

“Yeah. I can always get you another if you--”

“No. Don’t do that.” Regina sits a little straighter. Like she does when she is about to unearth a confession.. “I grew up eating them savory. The red beans, I mean. Refried or in rice. I would have never thought beans and sugar.” 

“It’s how I first tried them.” Emma tells her as she that first bite. The burst of those molecules. The crystals in the sugar are already breaking down. An old memory of when she’d been a skinny fifteen year old washes over her like the warmth of this place. “I… uh, actually used to help make buns like this.” 

“Did you?” The stardust takes flight out of her lips.

“Yeah,” She says with a heavy breath. “It was during this one Summer. The case agent didn’t know what to do with me. Difficult kid out of school with nowhere to go.” 

It’s the first time she talks about this. They have always avoided talks of families and their pasts. Have been too happy to leave in the blanks and doze off under Emma’s clean sheets. Regina’s eyes soften and her stardust circles them. Wraps itself around her wrist as Emma remembers the old apartment above the shop.

“A woman called Ingrid took me in.” A smile pulls at Emma, thinking about her. Ingrid’s dark hair held back in a neat braid. The way she’d try and get Emma to sing as they spooned in the filling into the dough. “She was the best foster mom I ever had. For a while I thought she might even keep me around but...” 

“What happened?” 

“I don’t know.” She hears the strain in her voice. Sees the gold scatter around her. “The social agency came and got me one day. No explanation. They just said I had to go. I tried to find her again but she wasn’t there anymore.” 

The shop was closed even if the sign was flipped to open. Every light was off, Emma remembers that. She remembers breaking a window in the back and climbing up the stairs. Trying not to cry. Finding a thin layer of dust over everything. No one had been there in weeks. She swallows back her tears thinking about Ingrid now. Not even knowing the color of the stars in her. 

Regina takes her hand without saying a word. Like she is trying to figure out a way to right the wrongs in her past. To give her a better life. Emma knows she must see them too. The cogs in the machine. The ones that kept Emma in that endlessness. The same ones that mark her requests as a mistake and make the future uncertain. The ones neither of them can stop from turning. Maybe that’s why Regina smiles at her before she takes one bite from her bun. 

And. The crimson surrounding her stills only to explode. 

“Oh my _God._ ” Regina says with a hand to her mouth. Her eyes shine when she looks at Emma. “Oh my God.”

“Kicks that duck foam’s ass, huh?” Emma tells her lying back against her seat.

Watching the curve of her lips and her little sighs of pleasure. 

In that moment with a thousand unanswered things, she wishes for more nights like this. 

  
  


* * *

Emma wipes her boots before she rings the doorbell. Makes sure to shake the excess water off her jacket. Regina had sent her this address and she is only realizing that this must be her place. A freshly painted stoop in an old neighborhood in the city. 108 on Mifflin Street. She had imagined a highrise with a doorman. Gloved hands pressing elevator buttons. Emma folds her work vest on her arm and rings the doorbell. Regina opens the door and Emma relaxes. Her body so warm already. The gold itching to find her. 

“I was beginning to think you’d lost your way.” It’s Regina’s way of greeting her. Of biting down her smile. 

“You know, ‘if you’ve gone past the yellow house you’ve already missed it’, is not the helpful tip you think it is.” Emma tells her, feeling a smirk forming. “Neither is ‘a block away from the oak tree.’” 

“No one’s ever complained about my directions before.” She says, kissing her lightly. “It figures it’d be you.” 

“It’s why you keep me around.” Her voice gets caught in the middle of it and Emma hopes Regina missed. The hiccups in her stardust. 

It doesn’t go past a half glare and a tug on her sleeve. The floor creaks under their steps, muffled by a large Persian rug. It is nothing like she knows. Regina keeps dry Eucalyptus by the door, the scent floods Emma’s chest. Runs down to the ache in her legs. Burns away at what was left of the cold in her lungs. Those particles flare up even more golden in the foyer. Emma catches Regina following them, breathing them in. Like she had waited all day for this moment too. 

“Long shift?” Regina asks as she leads the way deeper into the house. 

“The longest,” Emma hesitates as she takes a look at the vases. And the art on the walls. The reds and oranges of it.. “They got me number-crunching again.” 

“Is that even part of your job?”

“Nope,” She says as they enter a living room. Where the ceilings stretch high and the world feels so far away. “The fancy software they got broke down. So it was back to manual. That and I had to deal with the mess it made out of the stock room and the online orders.” 

“Hmm.” She points Emma towards a couch. One that has a multi-color blanket thrown over it, one that she would be happy to let herself sink into.

“What?” 

“Nothing.” The air grows heavier with the sound of a bottle being uncorked and the taste of apple lands in Emma’s tongue. “I think I would have bitten an idiot’s head off by now. Especially your manager’s.” 

“That I’d love to see.” Emma chuckles and accepts the glass of cider Regina hands her. Won’t say how she has no choice. That her whole life it’s all been this. That pent up energy in her muscles, the tension that comes from holding back. Instead she drinks and lets the red molecules of the apple make her eyes roll back and ease her shoulders. 

“I used to do it professionally. Rip people apart,” Regina tells her as she sits next to her. “Maybe you would have been forced into jury duty and seen it.” 

“And tilt the verdict in your favor.” 

Regina only hums as response. Carefully sets down her glass on the coffee table and lifts Emma’s feet onto her lap. Works to unlace her boots, stardust at her fingertips. Warming up her skin. Emma watches her, the dark hair falling on her face. Her long breaths and the softness she can’t hide even if she tried.

“You never said why you stopped doing it.” 

“It wasn’t the life I wanted.” Regina keeps her feet on her lap. “And it was a lot of work to keep up the pretense. More than I had the energy for.” 

“I thought…” Emma thinks of Regina’s hypothetical questions over the phone. About a soul weighing less. Diminishing. How long must she have kept it a secret. 

“It isn’t supposed to happen,” Her shoulders drop with her breath. “My mother never got sick of reminding me how much they had paid a mage for my stardust. Her father hadn’t been able to afford hers. And my...papá had no problem paying for so many grams. I always assumed something must have gone wrong with me.”

Every particle stirs when Regina turns to look at Emma. The pieces fit together, away from the corners of her. What must it have been like to have been surrounded by that faint grey and be told to want it. To accept it as a part of her. 

“There is nothing wrong with you.” Emma puts her drink down and moves forward. To kiss her, hands careful to cradle her face. 

“If you say so.” She whispers as she returns her kiss. 

Slips onto Emma’s lap and lets Emma whispers _I do, I do say so_ against her neck. Her lips color her jaw golden. Emma thinks only of now, of her fingers hiking up her blouse. Taking their time, running up Regina’s sides. Whimpering because she had thought about her all day. And she wishes this could be at the end of each one. Those exploding molecules in Emma’s mouth, the flame running down her spine. Following the trail of Regina’s nails. They end up their feet poking out of that blanket. 

“There is a bed upstairs, you know.” Regina mumbles, raking her fingers on her scalp. 

“And move? What’s in it for me?” Even with her eyes closed she can see the colors. Feel them vibrating out of her. 

“Dinner.” 

“Shouldn’t that have come before?”

“There is always a next time, darling.” The words come out so rich and low that she doesn’t question meaning. Only thinks now, now. 

* * *

Sunday. Emma had rearranged schedules and picked up extra shifts to stay in Regina’s bed during the morning. Not leave her grumbling about the hour. Not quietly slip her boots on downstairs. Last week she said something about Domingos de sopa, starting the week with something warm. Now that the first snow is thick on the pavement and the stairs on her stoop need to be salted. The morning is blue coming through the windows. Regina keeps her rooms warmer than most. Emma loses her socks in the sheets every night because of it. She wiggles her bare toes, feeling her stardust move to their very tip of them.

“Aha. And how much culantro?” Regina says into the phone as she scribbles into a notepad. ”Bone and everything?”

Emma yawns and stretches next to her. Teases the small hairs on her arm until Regina slaps her hands away. Moves to her knees. 

“ _Stop that_.” She smacks her with the notepad. “No, no es con usted, tia. No one.” 

It’s only a guess, to think of what Regina had just answered. She stops her games and decides to hit the shower. Fill the bathroom with steam and use the basil soap that leaves her skin clear. If Regina got a match, if the algorithm stopped marking her requests as an error, Emma can see her life. With a kid who was waist high hanging upside down from the couch with a book. Counting down the seconds until their mother turned around and told them about their face staying frozen like that if they didn’t sit back up. Emma doesn’t quite see her place. Where Regina would put her in that life. 

She dries herself off and uses Regina’s hair product, the one that keeps the waves in her hair when she lets the air hit it. It won’t do much for her curls but it’s better than nothing at all. Emma pushes down those thoughts and follows the specks of crimson down to the kitchen. Where the water is steaming and Regina is busy turning cassava in her hand as she cuts it. Corn and plantain are lined up on the counter. Carrots and garlic. 

“I didn’t know all this could go into soup.” Emma says as she pushes one sweet potato with her finger. 

“This was my papá’s favorite. Beef soup.” Her robe is snug around her, hair tied back in a bun. “I had to call my aunt for the recipe.” 

“Oh, so that’s why the slapping.” 

“The powers of deduction that old woman has. She can _hear_ when you’re even remotely undressed,” Regina says with a shake to her head. It’s somewhere between an explanation and an apology. “It’s how she knew her husband was cheating on her.” 

“Come on.” Emma laughs in disbelief. “There is no way that’s true.” 

“She drove for an hour and half in the rain to catch him. They’ve been divorced ten years now.” She takes a deep breath and moves onto the carrots. “My aunt Dinah is all I have left of him. My mother never stepped foot in the kitchen unless it was to give an order so…” 

“What can I do to help?” The crimson swirls with her breath as Regina stills her knife. 

“I hate peeling potatoes.” 

Emma smiles and claims the far side of the counter. Her stardust quietly settling in her chest as she imagines. Tries to think this is where she could be for a while. Bare feet on wooden floors and Regina busying herself with breakfast now that the meat and bone are simmering away in a pot. The gentle hum of the music that makes Regina’s color follow a beat. Dances so pleased when the thick tomato sauce bubbles away the eggs she had cracked into it. When they take their coffee back to the couch and Emma picks up the book she’d started last night. The winter daylight makes the gold darker as the hours pass. It casts a shadow on the white of the walls. 

The doorbell rings. Like the person outside the door can’t wait to be let in. Regna furrows her brow, the stardust pausing around her. Like she can already tell who it must be. Emma follows her figure to the foyer, the tensing of her shoulders. The door must be open an inch when a voice carries all the way through. 

“I had to hear it from _Dinah_ , of all people.” Hurried and clicking steps. “Do you know how pathetic that is? A two hour phone call too.” 

“Now it’s not a good time, Zelena.” 

“That’s what you always say and look at that. Noon on the dot. Perfect timing.” 

It’s the acid green color of her stardust that Emma sees first. Like it’s too eager to find her gold and examine it. Emma sees her particles fall. Retract and stay on her chest. In time for a woman who has Regina’s build to startle her to her feet. She has longer, dark hair tied back in a slick ponytail. Her smile is too wide for Emma’s liking. 

“Hello there…” 

“Emma,” Regina comes in behind her. The crimson battling away with the green. “This is my sister. Who is just lea--”

“Staying for lunch.” Zelena says stepping closer. “You are making father’s favorite after all.”

Regina’s sister has green eyes that follow her. Study her. Read the stardust still clinging so tightly to her chest. Zelena extends her hand to Emma, still gloved in thick, black leather. Emma shakes it, trying her best to smile.

“It’s nice meeting you.” 

“A pleasure.” There is something like mockery in her tone. 

Regina rolls her eyes, the crimson stands in thin columns behind her. Like irked hairs on a cat’s back. 

“Help me set the table. Since you’re here.” 

“I’m a guest--”Zelena scoffs, pretending Emma is in on the joke.

“That would imply you were invited.” She says pulling her by the elbow. “Besides, you’re my sister. You can’t be a guest.” 

“Dear little sis doesn’t want me talking to you,” She says with a wink. “I’d call that underhanded.” 

“ _Zelena_.” Regina tightens her grip on her sister and gives Emma an apologetic look.

But she doesn’t deny it. Leaves Emma to sit on the couch. To leaf through her book while she hisses at Zelena in Spanish. Avoids looking her way as she sets the glasses. Throws a kitchen rag at her sister’s face when she fetches the spoons from the cutlery drawer. Emma tries to believe it isn’t what she thinks. But with each of Zelena’s laughs the place she’d claimed for herself seems to shrink. Inch by inch. 

“So, Emma.” The acid green slides down Emma’s shoulders like a snake. “Regina won’t tell me anything and considering I had to learn about you from an old gossip...what do you say to filling in those blanks? Answer a few questions?”

“You don’t have to--” Regina’s fingers don’t quite touch her wrist. 

“Shoot, yeah.” It’s a test, Emma knows that. “I don’t mind.” 

“How did you two meet?” Her teeth are perfectly white. Perfectly straight. Screaming Class A. “No, wait. I’m not interested in that. How long has _this_ been going on?” 

The spoon feels heavy in her grasp. Emma concentrates on that weight and takes a sip from the soup. It tastes like this morning and the hum of the music. 

“A few months, give or take.” Emma knows the gold is betraying her. Shaking just above her skin. It’s been exactly three months and two weeks. 

“That’s interesting.” Zelena turns to her sister. It’s supposed to mean something. “Has she never mentioned me?” 

“Believe it or not, you aren’t my every topic of conversation.” Regina scowls and then mutters something only they can understand. 

Emma tries. To focus on the taste of this morning. Of the potatoes she’d helped peel. The beef that had slowly braised over the fire. The story she can understand. 

“Uh, what do you do for a living?” She asks, ignoring the green still on her arms. 

“I’m a mage.” That is supposed to say it all. To place Zelena so far above Emma. “It’s a little dull if I’m being honest but it’d be poor manners to complain. What about you? What do _you_ do, Emma?” 

“I…” Crimson finds her wrist. She doesn’t have the courage to look at Regina and find the anxious press of her lips. “I work part time at an artifacts depot. Part time as a delivery driver.” 

“What? Were you bored one day and decided to slum it for a bit?” Zelena’s stardust prickles her skin like the smallest of needles. 

“No.” Emma feels the gold at the back of her throat. Standing by the edge of her pores. “I’m not a Class A.” 

“A Class C. Met through an act of fate, is that it?” Zelena stirs the soup in her bowl. The hard metal of the spoon hits the porcelain sides. “Mother will be thrilled about this, no doubt. Do you think you could manage to--.” 

“That’s _enough_.” Regina hisses through gritted teeth. The crimson wrapping itself tighter around Emma’s wrist. “I cannot believe you! The nerve to just barge in--”

“What? I’m being friendly. Just like you asked me to.” 

“Hija de la gran mil…”

The gold is making her muscles ache. Down to the bone. Watching the different sizes of particles clash. Become a mess of colors, explode against the light. And Emma can’t breathe anymore. With her place shrinking and shrinking to nothing. The uncertain future colliding with the now. 

“Um, I gotta go. I...need to get to work.” Emma tosses her napkin on the table. “Forgot I had a shift at two. “

“Emma, don’t--” Regina must recognize the lie because she takes her hand. 

“I’ll see you later.” She holds her goodbye kiss and steps back. Finds her boots by the door. Slips into her jacket, feeling the inside of it so cold. 

The loose change in her pocket might be enough for the metro. All the way back to her place.

* * *

The feeling is faint now. Like thin cotton under the soles of her feet. The gold gets lost in the sunlight. And the crimson looks like scarce freckles on the brown of her skin. Emma stocks the shelves. Runs through instructions in packages. Dissolves that instant coffee in a paper mug. Falls asleep with her forehead against the back window of the metro. Regina has been calling at the end of every shift. By the time she knows she must be sinking into her mattress. Emma lets the phone vibrate on the pillow next to her. Three times. She tries switching her schedule. Going for a run in the cold. See what is left of the color freeze in the air. In the morning Regina messages her. _There was an accident on the Brown Line today. It’s five degrees colder this morning. Stairwell broke down on Primrose._ Emma reads them all but does not answer a single one. 

In a bout of self-loathing, with the microwaved meat patty tasting like plastic in her mouth, she does a quick search. _Regina Mills._ Old public records on Regina’s cases. Quick quotes about high profile clients in newspapers. Older than six months. Emma knows her own search would only turn out an account she keeps around for work. Not much else. _Zelena Mills_ , she thumbs into her screen. She finds interviews. Journal publications. A society photo taken at a highrise garden. A woman that shares a jawline with Regina, her brown skin offset by the sharpness of a white dress. Zelena flanks her at one side in a dark green. Regina in a deep violet at the other side. They smile at the camera with a champagne flute in their grasps. White and pink bodies in the background behind them. 

“Fuck.” Emma mutters, the inadequacy of a week ago rushing back like a cold. 

What the hell had she been thinking? For three months and two weeks. 

“You OK?” Jacinda asks plopping down on the chair next to her. 

“Yeah. Yeah.” She offers her a smile, hoping it’ll keep the questions away. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” 

“That’s it?” The look she gives her. Like Jacinda can see the last of her crimson freckles too. The gold that is becoming silver. “You’re sure about that?”

“Eric brought fish again today?” 

Jacinda smacks her arm and rolls her eyes. Emma feels a tug of fondness for her. 

“You look like shit.” It’s kind. Her voice, as she pushes a beignet her way. 

“Well, I feel like shit.” She finally admits with her mouth full of fried dough. 

“Sabine’s mom is taking Lucy after closing. We’re thinking of hitting a bar tonight, blow off some steam,” Jacinda says so quickly, in her usual tone that means that the argument is already won. “Might be good for you to come out too.”

“Jacinda. That’s really nice of you but I don’t think--” 

“You’re coming. And I don’t wanna hear about some dumb excuse.” 

“Alright, alright.” She says taking another bite. Barely registering the melting crystals on her tongue. 

Her phone is on silent inside her pocket. Emma thinks it might burn through the lining. She resists the urge to check it. To be that person who obsesses over it during a night out. Instead she gulps her beer down and nods. Does her best to smile. Jacinda and her wife have that easiness about them. Those laughs that Emma would have thought had been so expensive. The blue and emerald, what little Emma can see of them, mesh together into a braid. Stay on each other’s lashes, in the curls of their hair. Two of their friends joined them at the table. Bringing flowers and hugging them close. Marian and Mulan. Amaranth and white, barely there. Stardust following each of their steps. Emma’s chest grows tight. Too small thinking of what little of Regina she has left on her skin. The disappearing stardust. 

“I’m getting another round. Everyone good with refills?” She says, with her ear ringing. Blood rushing cold to her toes. 

“I’ll come help.” Mulan slides out of her seat. “Barkeep needs special instructions to make Marian’s drink anyway.” 

“Don’t listen to her, Emma. To anything she says,” Marian says, never taking her eyes off Mulan.. “It’s all slander.” 

“Ay, let her go already.” Jacinda says leaning against her wife. Eyes already heavy with the drinks she’s had. 

“I can’t take them anywhere. None of them,” Sabine looks at Emma and smiles. So genuinely. “They’ve got us kicked out of three bars already.” 

There is a deep ache in her bones now. Emma swallows. Nods and forces out a laugh and heads towards the bar. Mulan follows and searches her pockets for her card. Her stardust is like a thin coat snow on her shoulders. She looks away, to the bottles lined up behind the bar. The yellow tint the light gives them. Emma asks for another round. Four dark beers that promise chocolate but don’t really deliver. 

“Do you have vermouth?” Mulan asks the barkeep. 

“Yeah.” He replies, his brow knitting in offense. 

“Can you make a Rum Martinez?” She closes one eye. Like she is bracing herself to get chewed out.

“What the hell type cocktail is that?” 

“It’s for my girlfriend.” Mulan mumbles only to follow it up with a smile. She walks him through the instructions. One part rum, one part vermouth. One teaspoon of Maraschino. Bitters, original. 

Emma is pretty sure Mulan is getting overcharged for that drink. Mulan knows it too but she hands him the card anyway. With the look of someone who is doing the numbers in her head. Thinking about the red border in her account that would leave her in danger. He sets the drink ablaze and presents it with a hand gesture. 

“Do not ask for that again.” He says as he turns away from them.

“Marian, she’s the highest low-maintenance there is,” Mulan explains, as she places the drink on a tray. “Hard to break those Class A habits sometimes.” 

The words shoot through her. Make her think of the fading crimson on her skin. Of the phone in her pocket.

“Marian’s a Class...I wouldn’t have guessed.” Not with this bar and its sticky floors. The talk of her feet killing her. Her job downtown. The chip in her nails. 

“Yeah, she’s great like that. She’s nothing like you would expect. Just takes you by surprise every time.” The color rises to Mulan’s cheeks. “Don’t tell her I said that. I’ll never live it down.” 

Emma bobs her head. Stunned. It means _something._ But everything feels too tender inside her head. Inside her ribs. She drinks her beer, until the tenderness dies a little. Because the stardust is disintegrating before her eyes. Blue, emerald. Amaranth and white. Going with laughs. Going as they pull Emma out to dance. She understands joy now that she sees it. With Sabine and Jacinda’s locked hands. Marian’s fingers in Mulan’s hair. Understands it enough to realize it’s missing. That it’s all stardust. She drinks some more, to let it go. To mourn it. Smokes that last load of Ruby’s Vanilla Silver on her way to the station. When her cheeks have been kissed goodbye and they all are blinking away sleep. 

Her feet are wobbly down the metal stairs. Emma fucking scrapes her palm on the pavement. Curses as she unlocks the door to her building. The Vanilla Silver doing so little for her. It’s only good to make her head spin until she is outside herself. It’s her stubborn legs that carry her up to her apartment. 

“Where the hell have you been?” 

Emma hears her voice before she sees her. Regina. The fire between the bones of her spine confirms it. 

“Out.” She holds onto the railing as she takes her in. The purse on the floor. The crinkled folds in her pants. Regina must have been sitting on the stairs. Waiting. Calling her.

“With whom?” It’s cutting and demanding. Her dark eyes are hard and her jaw locked. Set. 

“Friends.” Emma closes her fist around the ends of her jacket. “We don’t have to tell each other everything. That’s how this works, right?” 

She slips past her to fumble with her keys until she unlocks the door. Regina doesn’t hesitate to follow her in. Have this out when the tenderness in her is so numb. 

“You don’t get to do that. Not when I’ve tried calling you. Giving you space and getting nothing in return,” Her voice sounds like those first times she’d called. So determined to get an answer she likes. “You’re going to talk to me. Now.” 

Emma lets herself fall on her bed, blows air through her mouth. Covers her eyes with her arm. 

“What’s the point?” 

“The point?” Regina doesn’t sit. She can feel her standing. Pacing. “The _point_ is that we fix whatever--”

“No one even knows about me. Or us,” The room is spinning when Emma tries to sit up. Keep her eyes on Regina. “So yeah, why bother fixing it?” 

“That’s why you’ve been shutting me out? All because of something so--” She cuts herself off with a kiss to her teeth. 

Emma stays quiet. Watches Regina do that thing. Where she collects herself through deep, long breaths. She sees her at those highrise gardens. Doing that over and over again in a silver fog. 

“I hadn’t spoken to my sister in months,” She tells her carefully. “And besides, we’ve always been at each other’s throats. Why would I tell her anything?” 

“I saw how she looked at me.” It shakes out of her in anger. “Like she _wanted_ a reason to think I was beneath her.” 

“Because she’s a prejudiced self-hating asshole with a superiority complex _!_ ” Regina’s eyes grow brittle but never soften. “Do..do you think that’s how _I_ feel about you?”

“Fuck. Regina, no--I didn’t say that.” Heat burns at the Vanilla Silver. Grounds her. “But--”

“But what?” 

The burn spreads across her chest. To the pulsating injury in her palm until she can’t swallow the question back anymore. 

“Why me?” It’s all she can manage. Thinking of disappearing stardust. Gold and crimson. Blue and emerald. Amaranth and white. 

Maybe Regina understands the weight of the question. Because she sits at the foot of her bed, by Emma’s knees. Doesn’t reach out to touch her, like she is afraid Emma might recoil away from her. She wipes at the corners of her eyes. 

“Why not you?” It’s a whisper, a pin drop on a silent night. 

“Regina…” Emma has to dare. Because the gold is all but gone. “What...what happens to us when you get a kid? When everything’s falling into place and I’m the odd piece out?”

“Oh, _Emma_.” She cries, pinches her eyes shut. “Did you think you were a pitstop on the way to completing myself? That I’d ever want to leave you behind?” 

Something unravels. Untangles in her chest. Leaves her enough strength to shrug her shoulders and look away from Regina. 

“You idiot.” She leans forward, with her palm cupping her cheek. “I didn’t even know the color of my stardust before I met you.” 

It vibrates out of Emma. The gold. Lands on Regina’s eyelashes, on her nose. All Emma can do is cry. As Regina touches her lips against her cheeks. The corner of her mouth. The underside of her jaw. 

“I should have told you sooner. That first night.” Regina tells her with the crimson spilling on her skin. Wrapping itself around her arms. “Please, darling. Let me love you.” 

“OK. OK.” Emma kisses her, painting their lips with stardust. “I can do that.”


	4. Chapter 4

It strikes Regina every morning. The smell of the cold in the air now she can see the crimson of her stardust. How she feels the scent of the water and the hardness of the crystals on her skin because Emma’s gold covers her eyelids. Cold was never something Regina was grateful about. Not in those long corridors where she grew up. Where she kept the secret of her unhappiness like they all did. In a translucent blanket of silver. Every morning looking at Emma is a kaleidoscope. The kind her papá used to explain the weight of her soul. Before her mother explained the price of it. Regina breathes in the morning air as she pours sugar into her coffee. 

Then hears a loud thud by the backdoor. 

“Son of a bitch!” Emma growls out. 

Regina rushes out the door, forgetting her slippers. She finds Emma lying on the stairs leading out to the garden. The trash bag is still in her grasp.

“Emma!” Regina crouches down to inspect her. The light in her eyes. “Don’t move.” 

“Easy for you to say, your ass isn’t the one lying in slush.” She grunts as she tries to sit up. “Fuck. I knew it was gonna melt overnight! Ow, ow.” 

“Where does it hurt?” Her crimson is circling Emma so nervously. Rushing past her limbs, as if it could heal pain. 

“My back,” The gold of her stardust seems to heave for her. “My neck. Nothing’s broken though.” 

“And you know this how?”

“I’ve broken bones before. Can we please just move me inside?” Emma reaches for Regina’s hand and guides it to her back. 

It’s obvious when the gold and crimson hold onto each other. The pulse in the air, matching the anxious beat in her ears. Regina is careful with her, pulls her up inch by inch. Emma had been going to work. In that coat Regina keeps telling her is too damn thin. It didn’t do a thing to soften her fall and it’s soaked with water. Emma groans and bites at her lips in pain when Regina helps her slide out of her coat and her jeans. The cold, the crystals of it, must send a shudder down Emma back. Making her skin harden and shooting pain up to her brain. 

“I need to call work.” Emma says letting Regina ease her onto the couch. “Have them move my shift for the afternoon instead.” 

“Are you insane? You can’t even go up a couple of steps without help!” 

“It’ll get better.” She says with that hard-headed stubbornness of hers. “Just give me a couple of painkillers with a load of a vapor smoker and I’ll be good to go.” 

Regina counts her breaths and sits on the coffee table facing Emma. The gold is lying on top of her, so restless.. Her sweatshirt goes past her navel, her fingers are closed around her pulled sleeves. Obviously balling up the pain in one spot. 

“Querida, you have to call in sick.” She reaches for the blanket to cover the bareness of her legs. 

“I can’t. Contract says something about zero hours promised and part-timers not allowed sick days. They’ll just dock it out of my pay.” 

“And you signed that travesty?” 

“Regina…” Emma says with a heavy sigh as she avoids her eyes. “Just forget it.” 

It can get like this sometimes. The air and the gold, charged with everything Emma holds back. Regina had asked her to let go, let it out. To stop the ache of reigning herself in. The effort is visible in Emma’s chest, the subtle change in the rise and fall of it. The labor of it all. 

“We’ve talked about this. Tell me what you really want to say.” 

Emma closes her eyes and then only glances at Regina for a moment. Before turning her attention back to the ceiling. 

“Of course I signed that contact. It’s not like I had a choice. I was already behind on rent, turning it down would’ve been a luxury.” 

Guilt squeezes at her chest. Regina forgets sometimes. About choosing to walk away from the firm because she was miserable. The four generations of women in her papá’s family. Damas de sociedad who have dedicated themselves to organizing afternoon teas and soirees. Large ballrooms and highrise gardens. Planning wine and champagne selections around grape leaves and fresh salmon. Working only in places where their status could be polished and refined. 

“You’re right,” Her fingers rake through her curls. “But you're still not going in. You’ll pull a muscle and then be out of commission for weeks.” 

“I’ll be OK just--”

“You can try and fight me about labor codes and vulture contracts if that will keep you home.” 

_Home._ The crimson finds Emma’s fingers, as if it had registered the meaning of the word. 

“Fine. You win.” The smallest particles of gold join with the red on her fingers. “But I need to be bribed.” 

Regina scoffs at the growing smirk on Emma’s expression. But spends the morning setting and resetting heat pads on Emma’s back. Using that cinnamon bark she’d bought just for her. The sugar and roughly chopped apples. The ointment Regina is careful to rub onto her back. A chapter of a book she reads aloud. On souls and stars. One that might explain them. How they came to find each other, how the world could have been if the mages had not bottled the stardust and sold it to the highest bidder. 

“You’ll make a great mom. When the time comes.” Emma tells her, with her gold swirling so placidly around them. The winter afternoon so quickly turning into night. 

“When, not if?” Her fingers trace the outline of the words on the page. 

“Don’t you see it that way?” 

“I’m sort of exhausted.” Regina lies back against the couch. “The case agent I spoke to yesterday asked me to reconsider all the ‘options’ available to me. That could only mean one thing.” 

“You didn’t tell me about this.” Emma turns to look at her with a wince. 

“She wasn’t the first to suggest it,” Her stardust had whipped furiously around her in that office and she had thought of Emma. Of every child who gets weighed and branded disposable. “Zelena was the first though she wasn’t so subtle about it.” 

“That sounds about right.” 

The brown of Emma’s eyes softens while looking at her. Regina can see the silent question there. _Why_ , why put herself through matching agencies. Why sign up for programs that would think it a mistake. An error in judgement that a Class A wouldn’t pay for the stardust of a brand new child. 

“I know how this looks. When nothing is stopping me from using a doctor and a mage,” The words stick to the roof of her mouth. Cling to the back of her throat. “But I know the price of stardust doesn’t determine a person’s life and certainly not their worth.” 

Crimson comes out with an exhalation. It shines with Emma’s as they capture the dying sunlight. 

“You know, stardust is happiness, the kind you’re willing to share. You got so much of that.” Her gaze is confirmation of it. Of what she’d whispered that night when Regina had asked to love her. “I think you’ll be the best mom.” 

It’s an effort to hold back her tears, so tightly in a knot. Thinking about all the colors she had missed as a child. The certainty that her mother’s stardust must be that same faint silver. That had never known another color. Never grown heavier. How her papá’s must have evaporated. No happiness they could have shared. Regina hadn’t known she had it in her, so much of the stars. Hadn’t truly discovered how to unlock it until Emma picked up that phone. 

“I hope you know this is your doing,” She tells her, blinking away that knot in her throat. “And that I’m not doing it without you.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Emma smiles as she follows the smallest of those particles. “I know.” 

* * *

The wrapping paper is making the box slippery as they walk on the pavement. It’s Spring and even the wild flowers are growing through the cracks in the pavement. Regina is late, something she never expected to be. A consultation had run longer than she had anticipated and halfway through she’d known it was a terrible idea. She had sat in that highrise office, watching the silver circle Mal like a cat. Wrapping its tail around the woman’s neck. Regina had tried to convince herself that maybe she could be a consultant, work at her own pace with some old associates. Keep her mind busy and away from failed requests and the judgement from agents. That wouldn’t feel like the crimson was being suffocated out of her. 

It’d been dull. Soul-crushing. And it had gone on forever. 

Late. Late to the store, as she’d picked up a present for an eleven year old girl she only knows through her mothers’ photos. Late when she just missed the last train for another ten minutes. Late when every pedestrian sign had turned red on her and skipping them had not been a choice. Regina has cursed at least at three different drivers and two cyclists for almost knocking the box off her hands. But the music and the familiar scent of oil tell her this ordeal is almost over. 

“Sapo verde to you, sapo verde to you!” One voice sings off-key.

_The Bayou_ is written in cursive on the large and clear window. The walls have painted a bright green with Birds of Paradise drawn onto the exterior. Regina can see it has been accommodated to fit a whole class of fifth graders and at least one of their parents. They’re all gathered around a table. Sound one large frosted pink. Lucy is so clearly delighted at the attention. Regina steps in as quietly as she can, sets the birthday present with all the others. She takes the moment to watch the colors of the room. The heavy stardust mixing together. 

Lucy’s is the color of an euclase. Regina spots the blue and emerald in the air, the two strains circling their daughter. Sabine and Jacinda’s distinct hues, swirling together in the air. The room kaleidoscope folding and folding on itself when her crimson finds Emma. It never stops feeling like Regina has stumbled onto a secret. Lucy blows on her candles to claps and laughs. 

“Hi” Emma whispers as she joins her. There is a Sun painted on her cheek and glitter in her hair. 

“It looks like I barely just made it.” Regina says, brushing the glitter off her temple. 

“Between the soda spills and the clown setting himself on fire they kinda haven’t noticed.” Emma says nodding towards the table where the cake is being cut. 

Marian’s amaranth reaches them before she does. Playful, like she imagines her sister’s could have been. Regina had seen her particles recognize hers as such when Emma first introduced them. There are three paper plants doing a balancing act in her hands, a jammy handprint on her shirt.

“Are you telling her about the clown? I think half the kids are traumatized.” She hands them both a plate and licks the frosting off her thumb. “How was the meeting? Worse or better than you expected?”

Regina gives Emma a look. _You weren’t supposed to tell._ She smiles sheepishly, her stardust following the corners of her lips. _Sorry, not sorry_. One spoonful of cake and Emma is walking back to the table. 

“Are you going to tell me what your agenda is or am I going to have to guess it from Emma’s lack of subtlety?” She splits a bit of cake and takes that first bite. Vanilla bean from half the world away. Raspberries exploding on her tongue. 

Marian laughs and every time she does Regina understands why she left highrises and ballrooms too. 

“She might have mentioned you doing some consultant work and hating it. Don’t try to deny it, you got that silver tinge on your coat.” 

“It’s been a year since my last case. I suppose I thought that now that I have...that my life is so different it wouldn’t matter. I could push through it.” Regina watches Emma passing paper plates. Refilling sodas in between bites of cake. “But--” 

“It was draining.” Marian completes with a sigh. 

“Yes. It was harder to go back to and pretend it’s all not bullshit.” 

Her friend bobs her head, as if she had just heard what she wanted to hear. The amaranth seems to simmer away with intention. 

“What if I told you I’m working on something?”

“I’d ask what kind of something.” 

“Oh, it definitely needs a cutthroat lawyer,” Marian bumps her shoulder with hers. With a familiarity that wouldn’t have been allowed had they had champagne flutes in their hands. “One who is sick of all the bullshit.”

Regina takes another bite of her cake and catches Emma winking at her from across the room. Unbelievable. It has her smiling crimson onto the frosting on the spoon.

“I'm taking that as a yes.”

* * *

Their office is small. The walls are all wood paneling and their windows look out onto the pavement. There is rust at the very bottom of her desk and there is a draft. Regina’s crimson floats around in the air, flares with each new file that lands on her desk. Her status sits unpolished and she has never been happier. With old tomes cracked open on her desk and the internal workings of so many agencies. Marian talked about a place that wouldn’t weigh, measure stardust when it came to matches. Statutes and codes that never prohibit but always twist are every day impediments. It’s Regina’s job to keep the office open. Fight every inspector, every citation. Court order. Every cog of the machine.

Regina loves seeing her crimson in courtrooms, threatening agents and clerks behind the safety of their desks. Perhaps it’s what the stars had intended for her. The work of tearing everything down. Building it back up as she goes home to Emma every day and watches as their particles tangle together. Have the gold painted on her eyelids, let crimson settle on Emma’s collarbone. Regina wonders when the day will come, when they have torn down enough of the world that they will be allowed that chance to bring home a child. Unweighed. Discover the color of the stars in them. 

It’s Winter again. The first snowfall is happening outside the window they are facing. It feels like it should matter. A sign, maybe. Regina tries to remember about the blessings from the abyss. The struggles that lead them both to be here. Emma’s late night number crunching of public records. Finding anomalies in the rows and columns. In the decisions agencies took when it benefited them. Jotting down numbers and names of people they could contact. Adding pages and pages to an ever growing file. The ache of their feet. The broken heels and muddied boots. 

  
  


She flips through her file, ensuring that every document is there. The inconsistencies in the law clearly highlighted. The legal precedents detailed and broken down in one comprehensive list. Still. Regina cannot help the bouncing of her knee. Emma squeezes her hand but makes no promises. She knows better than to reassure her now. It’s no ordinary citation Regina is fighting. It’s one class claim from the multiple agencies involved in foster and adoption matches. If she cannot win then it is truly the end of the line. That room in their house with the yellow walls and new shelves will sit empty. 

“We can pick up dinner on the way home.” Emma says, her knee starting to bounce too. “Red bean buns to go with it.” 

“I’d like that.” Regina interlaces their fingers together. There is a tremor to them that translates to their stardust. The nervous way the colors expand and contract like two lungs that can never find enough air. 

Regina’s number flashes above the door. The judge will see her now. Emma gets up with her, fingers still locked together.

“Hey.” Emma says as she swallows thickly. 

“Hey.”

“We’ll be fine,” She tells Regina, kissing the back of her hand. “No matter what happens in there. We’ll be fine.” 

It’s gentle and so bright. The gold imprint of Emma’s lips on her skin. Regina lets herself hope that it would be admissible evidence of that worth. Of that thing that proves the inherent wrongness of the system. 

“I know, querida.” 

Regina walks through the door, her crimson wrapping itself around Emma’s wrist one last time. 

* * *

Emma had explained her system to her. The number crunching that would do some good. Red for the children with only a newborn’s weight in stardust. Regina had looked at the spreadsheet, at the numbers. The names and addresses of private guardians. Not believing that so many were stuck in that constant cycle. Emma’s voice had broken, pointing at the difference in grams. Decimals. Dos ceros a la izquierda. That would have been enough to determine a new guardian. Regina filled out their paperwork with black ink. Had another attorney verify the authenticity of their claim. Of their signatures on their request. 

Because they won that day in court. Regina wrapped her arms around Emma’s neck, with all the weight of the stars. Of two years and three months. They had dinner by the fire that night, drank too much cider. Clumsily done away with their buttons. Because they still couldn’t believe it and their fingers shook with it. Their colors lit up with the fire and crackled with the heat of it. Her eyes were heavy on Emma, following her breathing. They’d torn down enough of the world and carved this place for themselves. 

Her red silk scarf over her black coat. Regina picks the lint off her sleeves and runs a hand through the hair that has grown past her chin. One last deep breath before they head out the door. Emma clears her throat, smiling through her reflection. 

“First impressions are important, darling.” Regina angles her chin but it only makes Emma roll her eyes. 

“He’s four, not the judge preceding your case.” 

“It can’t hurt to be careful.” She takes her gloves off the dresser, ignoring the stress of her particles. 

Emma must see it. The touch of her fingers is so gentle on her wrist. 

“They’re not gonna change their mind.” The gold isn’t still, as if she doesn’t quite believe it either. “Not even if you didn’t get that last bit of lint off your coat.” 

Regina looks down at her sleeves, inspects lapels of her coat and finds nothing. She glares up at Emma. 

“Made you look.” 

“You’re an ass.” A quick kiss on her lips is all it takes. To steady their stardust. “Let’s go before we’re late.” 

It’s the very last stop of the Brown line. The train goes slowly around the corners. Is careful not to pick up speed as it leaves each station. It’s colder when they step onto the platform. Sunny with that deceiving light that might trick them into believing it’s Summer. The streets are busy, endless rows of pedestrian lights. Steam and the smell of meat over fire. Regina has the address memorized. Go from the corner left at Andrew’s lane. Walk three blocks, past the for sale building. The projects tower. Right on the grocer painted blue. _Save the Kids-Home for Children._ It’s Emma who rings the doorbell, looking up at the sky. As if trying to purge her memories. 

The door opens and the same peached complexion agent greets them with a smile Regina knows to be practiced. 

“Oh, look at that! You’re right on time!” She says in an accent that always places her outside this neighborhood. Outside the city even. “Please, come in. Make yourselves at home. I’ll be just a minute.” 

“Thank you, Miss Blanchard.” Regina places a hand between Emma’s shoulders, feels the uneasiness of her breathing. 

The walls are painted bright colors, like they are trying to make up for the lightness of the children’s stardust. Operating under the belief that there are no colors inside them. There are hurried steps over, the mark of all the different tinges of stardust in the air. Even underneath the blanket of silver that wants to swallow them. 

“These places don’t change.” Emma says with a shudder. “They even smell the same. Like disinfectant.” 

There is a creak on the stairs behind them and Regina knows before she turns. Miss Blanchard holds him by his little hand. His clothes are a size too big and the curls of his hair have been badly combed out. Their son, with that brown skin that catches the light. 

“Go on, sweetheart. Go say hi.” She urges him. 

He shakes his head and leans against her legs. 

“It’s OK.” Emma says kneeling down to his level. “I never wanted to say hi either.” 

Their son eyes Emma and furrows his brow. Trying to decide if he is about to let down again. She doesn’t extend her hand to him but she smiles.

“I’m Emma. That’s Regina.” Her stardust is slow to approach him. Cautious. “What’s your name little man?” 

He looks up at Regina and then back at Emma. Takes one tentative step away from Miss Blanchard. 

“Henry.” 

“That’s a very a good name, Henry.” Regina says, tightening the knot in her throat. She kneels next to Emma. “It’s my father name too.” 

“Really?” He asks and they see it then. His stardust kicks in and it’s a deep orange. That could rival the brightest of flames. 

“Really,” The water wells up in her eyes and as does an ache in her cheeks. “And he was my favorite person in the world.” 

“Are you gonna take me home with you?” Another step and he is standing in front of them. 

“Would you like that, Henry?” Emma asks him with a grin.

Henry stretches his hand towards them. Instinctively, Regina knows to take it. 

“Would that be alright?” She asks not quite believing it. 

He nods with his whole head. The orange shaking out of him. The crimson and the gold abandon all caution and rush towards it. To wrap it between them. 

**Author's Note:**

> A MILLION THANKS to a certain PrincessBread who did the art for this story and imprinted the feeling I was going for!
> 
> This story came about because I watched Fast Color and just couldn't stop seeing the Emma-ness in Gugu Mbatha Raw's character. I started working on a different (and lot longer story) but the idea for this one just took over and I had to write this one first.
> 
> The setting is mix of Chicago and New York. How this society works and is structured (especially labor conditions) are largely based on my country's society. The inefficient and increasingly privatized bureaucracy, the classicism that disguises racism and colorism. Henry's Sr's side of the family.


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